Alonso and Mascherano

[Code]

In the system/set up we are using we are not supposed to get runs into the box from our CM`s very often, they are there to keep the ball in the team and break up play.

 

Our problem though is that only two of the players deploying the four main attacking positions are of any use and one of them has been injured too much this season.

 

Put Alonso/Mascherano into a team with great attacking players like Barca, the mancs, their national teams where they are used in the same system and you will be laughing all the way to the party to celebrate number 19.

 

They are the best CM partnership in the league, only Gerrard/Alonso are better so our focus should deffo be elsewhere.

 

Kuyt, N`Gog, El Zahr, Babel, Rieira, Benayoun thats our problems both in numbers and lack of quality, not Alonso and Mascherano.

[snez1]

They are probably the best central mdfield partnership you could ask for.

 

The only problem with them is they need the players ahead of them to be of top quality.

 

"Controlling the game" is a term that is mainly used now to ridicule Rafa, but these 2 really do do it. There aren't many games when we don't dominate possesion and that's because of Xabi and Masch, it' down to the more attacking players to then use the possesion well enough to win us games.

[philyhamann]

Everyone who goes the game can see a clear lack of any real movement from the players, and it doesn't help that the majority are slow. The best games I've seen Alonso play are with the pacey players on the left and the right, I remember Alonsos first game at Anfield when he was pinging ball after ball to Garcia to run onto, and it wasn't the last time he did that. He hasn't been crap, his options have been limited and he has adapted his game a bit - watching him for Spain, especially against England, was a joy and they had movement in every position infront of him.

[Mr T]

Momo is a better player than Mascherano.

 

Xabi doesn't score or create enough goals he's and very immobile.

 

Having said that, both these players are good enough to be in a title winning team; the fucking Mancs won the league playing Fletcher and John O'Shea in CM one year.

 

What we need to do is sign some actual attacking players with ability and ship out all the dross (bar Benayoun) that plays on either side of CM. Oh and perhaps sign a striker.

[snez1]

Momo is a better player than Mascherano.

 

Xabi doesn't score or create enough goals he's and very immobile.

 

Having said that, both these players are good enough to be in a title winning team; the fucking Mancs won the league playing Fletcher and John O'Shea in CM one year.

 

What we need to do is sign some actual attacking players with ability and ship out all the dross (bar Benayoun) that plays on either side of CM. Oh and perhaps sign a striker.

 

Momo's not better tha Masch, not by a long shot. Masch has had an average year thus far (although i think he's been better lately) but his first 18 months here were increadible.

 

Xabi's job isn't to be a goal scorer, he dictates games and has been our best player this season. They are both class players and just need better options ahead of them.

[philyhamann]

Momo at his best was better than Mascherano but his best never seemed to materalise after his shoulder injury, though Mascherano has always made better use of the ball I think Sissoko had him beat as a pure destroyer, the way Sissoko was able to win the ball further forward than Mascherano was a big reason as to why we did so well in Rafas second season.

[snez1]

Momo at his best was better than Mascherano but his best never seemed to materalise after his shoulder injury, though Mascherano has always made better use of the ball I think Sissoko had him beat as a pure destroyer, the way Sissoko was able to win the ball further forward than Mascherano was a big reason as to why we did so well in Rafas second season.

 

That's very debateable. They we're both immense when on top form, utter class, but I think Masch is more consistant and better on the ball. He's no Xabi but some games Momo was like Traore on the ball. Rate them both very highly but Masch gets the nod for me.

[philyhamann]

Mascherano being more consistent and better on the ball is why Momo was sold, he couldn't get in the team to regain his form which was erratic being in and out of the team. It was one or the other, and we took the safer option, but I do think Momo offered more from winning the ball so far forward at times, but when he was bad he was fucking awful, while I can't really remember Mascherano ever being bad, just looking a bit tired and a bit average. It is very debatable with him doing so well in Italy, but it was a clear choice with the way Mascherano was playing.

 

Alonso will thrive in any team with lots of movement, which our team is sadly lacking along with pace. It certainly doesn't help Lucas, the amount of times he turned to look for an option on the left against City and no one was there was a disgrace.

[Mr T]

Momo's not better tha Masch, not by a long shot. Masch has had an average year thus far (although i think he's been better lately) but his first 18 months here were increadible.

 

Xabi's job isn't to be a goal scorer, he dictates games and has been our best player this season. They are both class players and just need better options ahead of them.

 

We came second with 82 points with Momo at the heart of our midfield. What is Mascherano significantly better at than Momo? He's a marginally better square passer of the ball, but he can't run with it like Momo could and he doesn't win the ball back half as much. He's definitely not a 10M improvement on Momo that's for sure.

 

I backed Mascherano's signing but in hindsight it is just another example of Rafa's misallocation of funds.

[philyhamann]

Mascherano cost 10m tops, at the time Sissoko looked like he was going backwards after his injury, and never got the games to regain his form. I thought it was a huge mistake to sell him, but at the time it didn't look terrible with Mascherano, and still doesn't but I do think he was a huge part of the 80+ point season and winning the FA Cup.

[Royal Family]

They are both essentially holding players. Even leaving aside their individual merits (although did the people who rate Sissoko above Masch actually WATCH Sissoko in his final 18 months!!?), you can only win a league with two holding midfielders if you have a system with 2 attacking full-backs and 2 attacking wide players. We don't.

 

Alonso can be wasted in our current system - I absolutely hate it when he comes to take the ball off the toes of a centreback. Utterly pointless (and unnecessary if you have Agger of course) . And as snez points out, no movement ahead him; no movement to the side. And so he ends up looking immobile and off the pace.

[SpeedyG]

In the system/set up we are using we are not supposed to get runs into the box from our CM`s very often, they are there to keep the ball in the team and break up play.

 

While that's feasible for when we are playing against the big 4 in open games, you can't really be telling me that against a team that are sitting back and waiting for the counter that neither of our CMs are supposed to make attacking runs. Seriously, come on.

 

Our problem though is that only two of the players deploying the four main attacking positions are of any use and one of them has been injured too much this season.

 

You make it sound like we only have 1 problem. We have many. Crap width for sure, but just because they are crapper does not make our CM pairing good enough.

 

Put Alonso/Mascherano into a team with great attacking players like Barca, the mancs, their national teams where they are used in the same system and you will be laughing all the way to the party to celebrate number 19.

 

Put Robbie Savage alongside Etoo, Messi, Henry, Xavi and Iniesta and he'd win titles too.

 

They are the best CM partnership in the league, only Gerrard/Alonso are better so our focus should deffo be elsewhere.

 

How do you measure best? Most passes not resulting in an assist?

 

Kuyt, N`Gog, El Zahr, Babel, Rieira, Benayoun thats our problems both in numbers and lack of quality, not Alonso and Mascherano.

 

As I said there is more than one problem.

[SpeedyG]

They are probably the best central mdfield partnership you could ask for.

 

The only problem with them is they need the players ahead of them to be of top quality.

 

"Controlling the game" is a term that is mainly used now to ridicule Rafa, but these 2 really do do it. There aren't many games when we don't dominate possesion and that's because of Xabi and Masch, it' down to the more attacking players to then use the possesion well enough to win us games.

 

Against teams playing with 10 behind the ball you don't have the luxury of relying on just 4 players. The full backs need to press on and at least 1 of your center midfielders needs to be able to make a mark in an attacking sense. You are just not going to win games if all your CMs are doing is flicking the ball from flank to flank all game.

[Hooch]

I agree with the sentiments mate. I actually started a very similar thread to this last year, here:

 

http://www.liverpoolway.co.uk/forum/ff-football-forum/72079-alosno-mascherano-our-central-midfield.html

 

Schoolboy error with my Alonso spelling though!

[snez1]

Against teams playing with 10 behind the ball you don't have the luxury of relying on just 4 players. The full backs need to press on and at least 1 of your center midfielders needs to be able to make a mark in an attacking sense. You are just not going to win games if all your CMs are doing is flicking the ball from flank to flank all game.

 

United's central midfield usually contains 2 of Carrick, Scholes, Anderson, Fletcher, Hargreaves or Giggs.

 

They never score.

 

Mourinho often plays and played 2 midfielders who offer little goal threat like Makalele and Essien and Cambiasso and Zanneti. Xavi plays with a destroyer at Barca and has for years be it Motta, Kieta, Toure and Xavi's not a goalscoring or particularly offensive midfielder. He is a passer who thrives off the quality of movement around him, just like Xabi.

[SpeedyG]

I agree with the sentiments mate. I actually started a very similar thread to this last year, here:

 

http://www.liverpoolway.co.uk/forum/ff-football-forum/72079-alosno-mascherano-our-central-midfield.html

 

Schoolboy error with my Alonso spelling though!

 

Yep, you and Royal Family said it better than I could.

[SpeedyG]

United's central midfield usually contains 2 of Carrick, Scholes, Anderson, Fletcher, Hargreaves or Giggs.

 

They never score.

 

Mourinho often plays and played 2 midfielders who offer little goal threat like Makalele and Essien and Cambiasso and Zanneti. Xavi plays with a destroyer at Barca and has for years be it Motta, Kieta, Toure and Xavi's not a goalscoring or particularly offensive midfielder. He is a passer who thrives off the quality of movement around him, just like Xabi.

 

Sum up the goals and assists of those Manure CMs and it'll exceed ours. Giggs alone has 10 assists vs. 4 total for Xabi and El Jefecito (which BTW is 1 more than Lucas FFS).

 

My point though is not that those two aren't any good. It's that against a team that is only going to counter attack you don't need them both and if you are going to play both then one or the other needs to be able to contribute in attack and not having Etoo and Henry up front is not an excuse.

Edited March 2, 2009 by SpeedyG

[Glen C]

I'm not a fan of kuyt, but when gerrard and torres aren't scoring he seems like the only other person who may get a goal(when played at RM and not up front). But this isn't just because of the players we have but the system we play. If we played a system that committed more men forward in attack like the mancs do then alonso would have more options and when we put a cross in the box it wouldn't just be torres there marked by 4 defenders, but 3 or 4 other players there giving us options and giving the opposition problems.

 

Doesn't matter who we buy, until rafa changes his negative approach towards games it won't make any difference whatsoever.

[Sweeney287]

To be honest, most games we play away from we don't need two defensive midfielders. We need to be more adventurous and make the opposition worry about us rather than trying to squeeze the life out of the game.

 

That is why the mancs steamroller teams as they are petrified to attack them as they know they get caught on the counter so just defend deep and hope for the best.

[The Thong]

Don't see what the issue is. Mascherano lacks quality and a footballing brain. He is work in progress so is bound to be inconsistent. He has never controlled a game in the way the best holding midfielders can. He offers little in the way of creativity and his positional sense is dubious. He has a massive appetite for the game and powerful engine. Can tackle well and a good interceptor. He will come good but on current form he is limited.

[WhiskeyJar]

In the system/set up we are using we are not supposed to get runs into the box from our CM`s very often, they are there to keep the ball in the team and break up play.

 

Our problem though is that only two of the players deploying the four main attacking positions are of any use and one of them has been injured too much this season.

 

Put Alonso/Mascherano into a team with great attacking players like Barca, the mancs, their national teams where they are used in the same system and you will be laughing all the way to the party to celebrate number 19.

 

They are the best CM partnership in the league, only Gerrard/Alonso are better so our focus should deffo be elsewhere.

 

Kuyt, N`Gog, El Zahr, Babel, Rieira, Benayoun thats our problems both in numbers and lack of quality, not Alonso and Mascherano.

 

Logic unflammable.

[masch]

Masch and Xabi aren't the problem. That's a fucking quality CM right there. The problem's the complete lack of movement and width up top. We can't keep possession without completely dropping off the line between the oppo defence and midfield, if we don't we give the ball away.

 

As someone said earlier look at United's centre mid pairing; it rarely goes much further than the centre circle.

 

Swap Albert and Dirk for Messi and Ribery and this thread wouldn't be here. Merge our central players with Arsenal's wide ones and this thread wouldn't be here. =/

[the walsh]

if i could get 15millon ad up for mascherano id sell yes!!! he is a workhorse but there is no point winning the ball back if you keep giving the all away constanly and he does that for me he has been dreadful at times this year so given the choice id sell him and use the money to get a top class winger.id keep alonso ahead of him in anyway

[Ted]

So we're comparing Xabi to Savage are we now?

[masch]

I like these chalkboard thingy's

 

Chalkboards | Published chalkboard Chalkboards saved - ATx44i3Of6h2r8T42007 | Football | guardian.co.uk

 

Xabi passes like a machine but look how he can't get a ball into the final third around the Boro penalty area. Either he's been told not to try it - or people aren't making the runs.

 

Also worth noting that we made 2x as many passes as Boro in that game and had nothing to show for it. Carra is also perfect in his distribution.